Linda ,
If a golfer addresses a ball and then backs away from
his/her address position and then the ball moves after the time the player
backed away from the address position, does the fact that the ball was
previously addressed necessitate the one-stroke penalty and require the player
to replace the ball in its original location even though the player was not in
the address position at the time the ball moved?
Lou from Texas
Dear Lou,
The answer in 2015
would have been “yes.” At that time,
Rule 18-2b was still around. That Rule said basically that once the player
addressed the ball, he could not “un-address” it. Even though the player walked
away, he was still responsible for any movement of the ball after he addressed
it (unless there were clear evidence that something else moved the ball, such
as wind or rain).
Alas, 18-2b is no longer with us, and the answer to your
question is more subjective. There is now a penalty if it is more likely than not that the player’s
actions caused the ball to move, regardless of whether he had addressed it. For
a more thorough explanation, replete with examples of how to decide whether the
player caused the ball to move, please read Decision 18-2/0.5.
Linda
Copyright © 2016 Linda Miller. All rights reserved.
